2007

A gene known to be a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease puts out the welcome mat for the virus that causes cold sores, allowing the virus to be more active in the brain, researchers announced today.

The Bagle virus is not new. Since its inception in January 2004, about 188 variants have fanned out across the Internet. And although it may not be threatening your desktop or making headlines currently, Bagle is perhaps the most significant new virus to emerge within the last few years, with its authors manipulating its base code to include new and ever more dangerous payloads.

In The Night of the Living Dead, zombies sucked brain matter in a frenzied hunger. In the computer world, a Trojan can be used to turn your PC into its own computing matter - turning it into a zombie machine. Once under the control of such an illicit program, the Trojan can be accessed by attackers intent on any number of ominous deeds. Unfortunately, far too many believe it cannot or will not happen to them. The reality is, if your computer isn't properly protected, it's not a matter of 'if', but rather a matter of how long and how bad.

The Netsky.P worm was first discovered in March 2004, and two years later it continues to maintain a presence on antivirus prevalence charts. Netsky.P exploits an old (and patched) vulnerability, using a malformed MIME header to trick Internet Explorer into launching its email attachment. Microsoft provided a patch for the vulnerability, MS01-020, in March 2001. So what keeps an old worm circulating? The most likely reason Netsky.P continues to dominate may be the fact that it copies itself to P2P shared folders, using a wide variety of provocative filenames.

A new variant of the Bagle worm, discovered on March 2, 2006, sends an infected email claiming 'LAWSUIT AGAINST YOU' and instructing recipients to open its attached file for details. Of course, those who do open the attachment will infect their computers and begin spreading the infection to others.